Ionescu refuses to lose

Sunday

Feb 26, 2017 at 12:01 AM

Sabrina Ionescu came to Kelly Sopak as a petite third-grader with a skill that separated her from her peers.

She could dribble with her left hand.

Sopak coached a club team, and Ionescu father’s brought her in for a tryout. That was the start of a 10-year relationship, with Sopak coaching both Ionescu’s summer travel teams and her prep teams at Miramonte High School in California.

By the time she graduated, Ionescu was arguably the top girls basketball player in the country, a do-it-all point guard with rock-solid fundamentals, impeccable court vision and a fierce competitive streak. As she went off to college at Oregon, only one part of her game felt unfinished.

Ionescu was still learning to deal with defeat. It happened rarely in high school — Miramonte was 125-9 during her four years — and Sopak wondered how she would handle the ups and downs of college basketball.

“I knew she was going to have to go to a program and they were going to have to win, because she was not a pleasant person to be around when we lost,” Sopak said. “When we lost, her and I would go days without speaking with each other because she would take the loss too hard. I would have to let her go be alone for two or three days.

“That was my concern with her going to college — how are you going to respond to that?”

Oregon is about to find out. After winning four of five games, the Ducks have lost two straight to put their NCAA Tournament hopes in peril. An upset of No. 8 Stanford on Sunday would put them at 9-9 in the Pac-12 and likely punch their ticket; anything less would leave them with work to do in the Pac-12 tournament.

Ionescu knew she was signing up for a rebuilding project when she picked Oregon. The choice might seem counter-intuitive for a player who can’t stand to lose, but Ionescu liked the idea of being part of a turnaround.

“I think the opportunity here to come in and change the program around, all of us freshmen saw that opportunity, and the coaches definitely had that vision for us,” Ionescu said. “We’re believing in the vision they had for us and achieving it one day at a time.”

The turnaround is far from complete, but in the moments when Oregon has prospered, Ionescu has been in the middle of everything. She ranks among the Pac-12 leaders in nine statistical categories, and her four triple-doubles are already a school record.

The triple-doubles are nothing new for Ionescu, who averages 13.8 points, 5.8 assists and 6.8 rebounds as a 6-foot point guard. They were so common that she stopped keeping track in high school, though Sopak estimates the number in the 20s.

“It wasn’t really a big deal,” Ionescu said. “It’s just part of my game, so it never really was anything too crazy.”

Unlike, say, Russell Westbrook, Ionescu doesn’t pile up triple-doubles through freakish athleticism. Her coaches openly admit she’s neither the quickest, strongest nor the most athletic player on the floor.

Ionescu, whose favorite player is John Stockton, relies on savvy and fundamentals, especially as a rebounder.

“I watch the ball when I shoot, so when someone else shoots, I know where it’s going to go,” she said.

Beyond her statistical contributions, Ionescu’s competitive edge has made a difference for the Ducks. That was apparent when she broke her thumb and had to miss most of five games, despite lobbying coach Kelly Graves to let her play left-handed.

“She sets the tone for us,” Graves said. “Without her, we lose a lot of that toughness and competitiveness.”

This, too, is nothing new. Ionescu’s competitiveness was legendary in high school, to the point that Sopak gave up on skits, lip-sync contests and anything else that involved a subjective judgment.

“If she couldn’t win, she would argue to the point where people conceded,” Sopak said. “She does not like to lose.”

Guilty as charged, Ionescu said.

“Any argument, I always have to get my point across,” she said. “It’s always in my nature to try and win.”

As well as she’s played as a freshman, Ionescu is only scratching the surface of her potential, Graves said. She’s still learning how to use a ball screen, how to compete against superior athletes and how to adjust when she can’t rely on smarts alone.

Once she masters those things, it’s no stretch to imagine her going down as the best player to wear an Oregon uniform. Right now she’s a freshman point guard on an NCAA bubble team, trying to take the Ducks somewhere they haven’t been in almost 12 years.

“I’m excited to finally play in some games where you win or you go home,” Ionescu said. “I haven’t had that in almost a year, since high school. It’s also going to show we’re building something here.”